When in the enfranchisement of the black men [women] saw another ignorant class of voters placed about their heads, and beheld the... danger of a distinctively "male" government, forever involving the nations of the earth in war and violence; and demanded for the protection of themselves and children, that woman's voice should be heard and her opinions in public affairs be expressed by the ballot, they were coolly told that the black man had earned the right to vote, that he had fought and bled and died for his country.It was not because the three-penny tax on tea was so exorbitant that our Revolutionary fathers fought and died, but to establish the principle that such taxation was unjust. It is the same with this woman's revolution; though every law were as just to woman as to man, the principle that one class may usurp the power to legislate for another is unjust, and all who are now in the struggle from love of principle would still work on until the establishment of the grand and immutable truth, "All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The gay world that flourished in the half-century between 1890 and the beginning of the Second World War, a highly visible, remark...ably complex, and continually changing gay male world, took shape in New York City.... It is not supposed to have existed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Males more often operate in a detached and isolated fashion. Solitary work to master a skill is a common characteristic of male li...fe, and men are more quick to dismiss the claims of other people and even of their own emotions. This approach tends to make things (machines, ideas) at least as important as people in the man's inner life. Words such as rational, independent, and objective describe positive aspects of this tendency; cold, detached, unfeeling are words for the more destructive aspects. In contrast, women's lives are more likely to embody the theme of connection--both connection between people and connection between the emotional and intellectual parts of oneself. Women have less of a penchant for deciding things independent of the relevant network of connections. In most instances people matter more to them than things and they will put a faithfulness to human ties above dedication to "principle" or pure "independence" of judgment. It is testament to the male bias of our society that such qualities are often referred to with the demeaning names of "dependence" or "conformity."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The suffering of either sex--of the male who is unable, because of the way in which he was reared, to take the strong initiating o...r patriarchal role that is still demanded of him, or of the female who has been given too much freedom of movement as a child to stay placidly within the house as an adult--this suffering, this discrepancy, this sense of failure in an enjoined role, is the point of leverage for social change.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Coming to terms with the rhythms of women's lives means coming to terms with life itself, accepting the imperatives of the body ra...ther than the imperatives of an artificial, man-made, perhaps transcendentally beautiful civilization. Emphasis on the male work-rhythm is an emphasis on infinite possibilities; emphasis on the female rhythms is an emphasis on a defined pattern, on limitation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

To the small naked children, running lightly in the sun beneath the palm-trees, the little girl's sex membership is as clear as he...r brother's, but there is less that she can do with it. When she trips and falls, she clutches at her head, or tries to fold her arms across her chest. Her femininity is concealed deep within her, nothing that she can touch and see, depend upon or flaunt. In those societies where children's sex membership is recognized by adults, in which the men treat the little girls with flirtatious attention and the women tease and challenge the small boys, the little girls respond with movements of the entire body, which undulates and postures in delicious indulgence of feminine response. The small boy struts, sometimes with emphasis on his penis, more often carrying hatchet, knife, stick, pole, in upward positions as he marches, parries, performs. His behaviour, however symbolic, is to the extent that it is male a concentrated phallic exaggeration, while his sister's is more diffuse and involves the whole body. The little boy is sure about his specific maleness, but seems not to be so sure of his adequacy to operate it. He supplements with various symbolic objects. Very often he shouts, adding the vigour of his voice to the vigour of his posturing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Perhaps nothing is so depressing an index of the inhumanity of the male-supremacist mentality as the fact that the more genial hum...an traits are assigned to the underclass: affection, response to sympathy, kindness, cheerfulness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

... in every State there are more women who can read and write than the whole number of illiterate male voters; more white women w...ho can read and write than all Negro voters; more American women who can read and write than all foreign voters.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »